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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES – Social and Cultural Development of Human
Resources - Tomoko Hamada
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN
RESOURCES
Tomoko Hamada
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, USA
Keywords: human development, social sciences, economics, psychology, sociology,
anthropology, political science, cognitive science, law, social evolutionism, rational
choice, group dynamics, social institution, nation-state, motivation, groupthink, status,
role, prestige, consumption, globalization, socialization, equity, power, bureaucracy
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Contents
1. Introduction
2. Different Disciplinary Approaches to Social and Cultural Development of Human
Resources
3. Social and Cultural Development of Human Resources
4. The Individual as Human Resource
5. Social Development of Human Resources
6. Social and Cultural Development Indicators
7. Rational Choice Theory
8. Consumption
9. Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Biographical Sketch
Summary
Social scientific research has developed in tandem with sociocultural changes and
histories of humans. Different disciplines such as economics, psychology, sociology,
anthropology, cognitive sciences, political science, and law have deployed particular
theoretical perspectives, methodology and scientific vocabulary in analyzing the
sociocultural dimensions of human development. The examination of the history of
Homo sapiens that began some 100 000 years ago will show that humans use culture to
adjust to environmental changes. Humans are symbol-producing creatures. They utilize
many sociopolitical categories such as race, nation, and ethnicity. Different human
groups have deployed these categories of race, gender, and ethnicity for achieving
sociopolitical objectives.
In social sciences, human and social development has traditionally measured in terms of
both quantity and quality. The characteristics of social structures strongly influence the
way individuals develop their human potentiality. An institution is an enduring set of
cultural ideas and social relationship that is organized in order to accomplish collective
goals. The relationship between the social and cultural development indicators and the
conventional economic development indicators will be discussed. Some argue that
economic factors such as income and occupational profile have a direct influence on
how people behave in social and cultural spheres. Others argue that social and cultural
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variables directly affect economic development. And others argue that the current
indicators do not adequately capture the processes of complex human activities. One
growing field of social scientific studies is consumption. Scholars are studying
consumption not simply as the act of satisfying utilitarian needs, but as the most
common form of expressive activity related to identities and cultural expressions.
Unlike the neoclassical model of the individual rational choice, sociologists,
anthropologists, and psychologists examine consumption as a domain in which
individuals and groups reflect on social structure, cultural values, and individual
identities. Other categories such as gender, race, class, and nationality directly impact
consumption patterns. Much investment must be made in order to ensure equitable
access to resources for all, and to encourage the development of social institutions that
are particularly suitable for human resources development.
1. Introduction
Sustainability refers to societal changes that help make resources needed for a healthy
quality of life accessible to all without degrading the environment. In 1987 the
Brundtland Commission of the United Nation produced a report entitled Our Common
Future in which it stated that sustainability is to meet the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This concept of
sustainability has been further developed within the UN system by using the term
“sustainable human development“ because of the realization that sustainability involves
improving human life and developing human resources in terms of biological, social,
economic, cultural, political, material, and ecological conditions.
Sustainable development should not mean sustained underdevelopment. In our
collective efforts for environmental protection, we also need to make sure that all people
have access to such important resources as education, health services, food, housing,
clean water, employment, and the fair distribution of income. All people possess the
fundamental rights for opportunities to realize human aspiration without compromising
the needs of future generations. The human being is the central subject of and agent for
sustainable development.
It is generally assumed that improving the quality of human life is a major goal of the
sciences. However, owing to the diversity of values, ideologies, norms, and historical
circumstances, people create different meanings of the desirable quality of life.
Individuals interpret this world subjectively. One person’s definition of the quality of
human life may not be the same as another person’s definition. Human thinking cannot
be divorced from its socio-historical and cultural systems. Within social sciences, there
is a multiplicity of opinions and views on human conditions and development.
Therefore it is difficult to present one unified theory or paradigm on the social and
cultural development of human resources. Instead of creating an artificial synthesis of
diverse perspectives, we have decided to explore major issues related to the present
theme and to examine human aspiration and sustainability from manifold viewpoints.
First we will examine a range of perspectives offered by different academic disciplines.
We will briefly illustrate the important research scope of such disciplines as economics,
psychology, sociology, anthropology, cognitive sciences, political science, and law.
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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES – Social and Cultural Development of Human
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Social scientists have deployed particular contextual prerogatives and reasoning in
analyzing sociocultural dimensions of human development. We will clarify some of
their basic presuppositions and meta-logic, as well as disciplinary orientations and
methodological vistas. Their fundamental assumptions about society, people, and
culture have affected the outcomes of social research and the state of their accumulated
knowledge.
Secondly, we will give a precis of the Homo sapiens development that began some
100 000 years ago. We will pay special attention to the last century of collective human
development, being mindful of categories such as the nation-state, race, and culture, as
well as the current social transformation called “globalization.”
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Section 4 will focus on the individual as the most vital agent and resource for
sustainable development. Psychological research findings on individual motivation,
decision-making and the so-called “groupthink” will be examined in some detail.
One of the most consequential meta-concepts in neoclassical economics is the notion of
the individual’s rational choice. The rational choice theory defines individual propensity
for optimization. This construct, as well as the notion of preference and taste, will be reexamined. We will see the overwhelming influence of this perspective on human
production, consumption, and macroeconomic development. Our debate on individual
rational choice will be followed by a general introduction to the currently available
economic indicators and sociocultural indicators for measurement and analysis.
This paper asserts that the nineteenth century concept of social evolutionism continues
to influence the way we measure and analyze societies comparatively.
Finally we will investigate in some detail the issue of global consumption, because
overconsumption by some people and underconsumption by others pose one of the
greatest threats to the environmental sustainability. Refuting the neoclassical theory of
individual rational choice and explicating the black box of economic preference, some
anthropologists and sociologists point to the dynamic relationship between taste and
culture in economic decision-making such as consumption.
The set of articles in this theme collectively examines key development issues such as
socio-psychological dimensions of human resource development, social ecology, space
and urbanization, ethnicity, gender, health, equity, religion, labor market, family,
consumption, and human and social development indicators. In examining these issues,
we also need to be fully cognizant of the relationship between social sciences’ metalogic and the basic vistas they employ for research endeavor. The subject of social
sciences is humans. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz once noted that humans are cultural
beings who spin their own webs of meanings. Humans constantly invent new meanings
and new signs while they try to make sense of their own sustainability and to create the
image of the future.
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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES – Social and Cultural Development of Human
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2. Different Disciplinary Approaches to Social and Cultural Development of
Human Resources
Humans collectively have invented languages, religions, arts, music, logic, and ways of
reasoning and communicating. Different human societies have created diverse
worldviews, rhetoric, formulae, and models to make sense of daily living, and to pass
their heritage on to the young. They have also sought answers to some fundamental
questions concerning the environment, life, death, and the universe. Among many ways
of exploring existential realities, humans have invented and developed what we call the
scientific way of thinking.
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Together with industrialization in the Western countries, sciences have advanced
rapidly. As modernization has created many new social problems, various scientific
disciplines have been founded and developed. Social sciences have relatively short
histories as most of them began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but really
took off only in the twentieth century. Social scientific research on society and people
has been conducted and advanced in the context of specific historical circumstances and
conditions,. Consequently social scientific disciplines have accumulated specific themes
of study, vocabularies, models, methodology, and application procedures.
It is important for us to understand what questions social scientists have asked, what
research strategies they have deployed, and what reasoning tools they have used, as we
explore the topic of the social and cultural development of human resources. The sets of
social scientific questions have both deepened and conditioned their approaches to the
problems at hand. In the following section, we will describe how economics,
psychology, sociology, anthropology, cognitive science, political science, and law have
examined human problems.
2.1. Economics
Economists usually inspect the way in which individuals, groups, business enterprises,
and governments attempt to achieve efficiently any economic objective they select.
They are usually concerned with human needs and motivation, perception of scarcity,
the balance between supply and demand, and the macro-level state of an economy. The
mode of thinking in economic terms can be traced to Aristotle and Plato in ancient
Greece who wrote about problems of wealth, property, and trade. Hinduism and
Taoism, for example, denounce materialism. During the Middle Ages in Europe, the
Roman Catholic canon regarded commerce as inferior to agriculture. Likewise the
Chinese Confucian doctrine and the Islamic codes place primary production such as
farming as morally superior to commercial activities.
In Europe, classical economics began with Adam Smith, and culminated in the synthesis
of John Stuart Mill. All classical economists believed in private property, free markets,
and, the principle of competition. Adam Smith was quite suspicious of governmental
intervention, and ardently supported the “invisible hand” which reconciled public
benefit with individual pursuit of private gain.
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Marxist economists sharply refuted the fundamental premise of classical economics.
Marx argued that every social system of the past had been a device by which the rich
and powerful few controlled the mode of production. Because of the exclusive
ownership of the mode of production, these few could live well and accumulate wealth
by exploiting the powerless many. However, each system was racked by moral flaws
and internal inconsistency. The more productive the system became, the more difficult it
would be to make it function due to the internal deficiencies. Eventually the system
destroys itself, either by disintegration or by revolution.
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Marx used the classical labor theory to analyze the inner workings of capitalism, and to
reveal the inequities and exploitation born out of the system. Marx believed that
capitalism was certain to falter because its tendency to concentrate income and wealth
in ever fewer hands created more and more severe crises of excess output and rising
unemployment. Marx considered that the masses of the poor would ultimately rebel
against the capitalists by the proletarian social revolution. Marx and Engels believed
that capitalism would be eventually replaced by communism, run by and for the people.
We will examine Marxism’s influence on social development theory further in our
discussion on sociology. Marxist theories explained market mechanism from the
perspectives of material conditions and labor relations.
In contrast to Marxist theories, William Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras, and Karl Menger
and other neoclassical economic theorists attempted to explain market mechanism by
the intensity of consumer preference. For example, they argued that income disparities
between the rich and the poor were due to corresponding differences between human
talent, intelligence, energy, and ambition. Neoclassicists believed that individuals
succeed or fail because of their personal attributes, not because some individuals have
special advantages to achieve their goals. In many capitalist societies, neoclassical
economics continues to explain price and income determination in supply–demand
terms.
Another significant school of thought is Keynesian macroeconomics. John Maynard
Keynes in Britain based his theory upon his assumption about prices, and rejected the
view of Adam Smith and classical economists that, left alone, a market system generally
functions well. He used concepts such as “aggregate demand”—the total spending of
consumers, business investors, and governmental bodies that influence the nature of
economy. Keynes considered the economy as being inherently unstable and approved
governmental interventions as macroeconomic policies. Keynesian economists believe
that during economic recessions, the government should use deficit spending to bring
about economic recovery. The deficit spending theory was applied to the United States
to create Roosevelt’s new deal policy to help the economy recover from the Great
Depression. Keynesian economics started contemporary macroeconomics. Today
macroeconomists tend to utilize mathematical and statistical models and simulations to
explain and forecast the behavior of an entire economy. They also utilize various system
approaches and flow analyses to economic problems.
Together with the rise of macro economic theories and methodology, various economic
indicators have been deployed to measure the state of economies both domestic and
abroad and/or the whole world. In today’s world, there is a wide range of governmental
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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES – Social and Cultural Development of Human
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and nongovernmental interventions on economic activities, ranging from tax, credit,
contract, trade, and subsidy policies, price and wage fixings, and the state monopoly to
quotas and tariffs and state economic planning.
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In recent years various economic problems with global consequences have stimulated
serious debate about the proper roles of private enterprise and governmental entities.
Economists’ opinions diverge as to how much and what types of interventions are
needed; how much regulations and governmental interventions should be placed on
global businesses; and how much local initiatives versus the multilateral or international
interventions should be considered. Those who promote the free market initiative
emphasize the free enterprise’s ability to improve trade and commerce, technological
development, crop yields, and industrial productivity. Those who argue for some
intervention point to increasing inequity, diminishing resources, unchecked
environmental damage, excessive military spending, and the reluctance of the rich to
share their wealth and expertise with the less fortunate. As we have entered the twentyfirst century, the world’s economy has become far more volatile with wide swings in
stock prices, business accounts, trade and investments, all of which have global
consequences.
2.2. Psychology
Like economists, psychologists are also concerned with the scientific study of human
behavior and the mind through systematic and objective methods of observation and
experimentation. Many psychologists focus their studies on the linkage between the
individual mind and social behavior. Some psychologists conduct detailed biological
studies of the brain, while others analyze specific behavioral patterns. Others investigate
how humans process information, and interpret phenomena. As scientists they observe
and study behavioral manifestations, and investigate both conscious and unconscious
mental states that are inferred from observable behavior. The topics of psychological
investigations cover an enormous range of phenomena: learning and memory, sensation
and perception, motivation and emotion, thinking and language, personality and social
behavior, intelligence, infancy and child development, mental illness, and much more.
Modern psychology finds its origin in the older disciplines of philosophy and
physiology as well as biology and medical sciences. Charles Darwin’s influence is
particularly evident in modern psychology. Darwin in 1859 published On the Origin of
Species, and introduced the evolutionary process of natural selection. Darwin’s theory
of evolution invited comparisons between humans and other animals, and had an
important influence on the development of many scientific disciplines over the last
century.
One can arguably select the three most prominent pioneers of modern psychology as
Wilhelm Wundt, William James, and Sigmund Freud.
Wilhelm Wundt laid the European foundation for psychological research and
experimentation in the late nineteenth century. William James, who in 1890 published
On Principles of Psychology, can be considered as the father of American psychology.
James discussed the stream of consciousness, the link between mind and body,
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emotions, the construct of self, the formation of habits, individuality, and defined the
field for psychological analyses. Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist whose
theories revolutionized psychology.
Two main schools of thought dominated psychological thinking during the discipline’s
formative years: They were structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism was first
presented by Edward Bradford Titchener, who attempted to identify the basic elements
of consciousness in much the same way that physicists break down the basic particles of
matter, using the investigative method of introspection. After his death in 1920s,
structuralism lost its popularity, but its influence is evident in today’s cognitive
psychology and social psychology, which will be discussed shortly.
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Functionalism in psychology found its main advocate in William James, who was
influenced by Darwin’s evolutionary theory and the concept of the survival of the fittest.
James analyzed the stream of thought, attempted to characterize the concept of the self,
and theorized on emotion. According to James, every thought in one’s mind is modified
by every previous thought; thus states of mind are in constant flux, and human
perception is always relative and contextualized.
James was interested in the functions of the adaptive human mind, rather than its
structure. Psychological functionalism was further developed by James Rowland
Angell, John Dewy, Harvey A. Carr, and others. The school of functional psychologists
developed longitudinal research techniques that utilize interviewing, testing, and
observing techniques over a long period of time to obtain detailed empirical data on
how individual reacts to different circumstances over time. In contrast to Wundt and
James, who studied the consciousness of the human mind, Sigmund Freud developed
clinical studies of the human unconsciousness. Freud believed that people are motivated
largely by unconscious forces, including strong sexual and aggressive drives. He
metaphorically compared the human mind to an iceberg: The conscious part of the mind
is like a small tip of an iceberg, while the vast portion beneath the surface comprises the
unconscious. The unconscious plays an important role in a person’s thoughts and
behaviors and it is vital for a person’s healthy growth. Freudian psychoanalysis utilizes
free association techniques in which the client is encouraged to talk about anything that
came to mind. Dreams are also considered as disguised expressions of deep human
impulses such as sexual drive.
Alfred Adler criticized Freudian theories of sexual trauma and of dreams as sexual wish
fulfillment. He believed that people are primarily motivated to overcome inherent
feelings of inferiority. Consequently Adlerian psychotherapy encourages clients to
overcome their feelings of insecurity and to redirect their energy towards developing
self-confidence and self-enhancement that eventually lead them to be able to engage in
meaningful social contribution and cooperation.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung theorized that all humans inherit a collective unconscious
that contains universal symbols and memories from their ancestral past. All humans
share a pool of unconscious experiences throughout history that manifest themselves in
mythology, religion, fairy tales, alchemical texts, and other forms of creative
expression. The concept of archetypes is perhaps the most influential part of Jungian
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theory. According to Jung, archetypes are typical modes of expression arising from this
collective layer of human history. The archetypes are fundamental psychic patterns
common to all humans into which personal experiences are organized. His “collective
unconscious” theory finds followers among contemporary students of cultural semiotics,
phenomenology, and linguistics.
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Karen Horney also questioned Freudian theory of the sexual drive (libido) theory, the
primacy of infantile sexuality, and the repetition compulsion. Instead she argues that the
individual needs the family and the cultural context through which values, attitudes, and
behaviors become organized. She theorized that humans have a basic need for love and
security, and that they become anxious when isolated and alone. She emphasized the
significance of the socialization process. Parental influences and other social
institutions’ influences contribute substantially to how a child’s personality evolves. She
stated that the most important aspect of this process concerns how cultural values
become integrated in the course of childhood development. While a child in a healthy
environment for socialization learns to appreciate his or her constructiveness, talents,
and limitations, a child placed in a hostile environment becomes alienated from his or
her real self. Negative behavioral consequences may include depression, phobic or
obsessive–compulsive behavior, paranoia, acute anxiety, and an incapacity for genuine
spontaneity. Horneyan therapy includes complex interactive and introspective dialogue
sessions with the client to increase self-awareness and to encourage self-actualization.
Many psychologists have also developed methodological tools to uncover the human
unconsciousness. Most notable are projective tests such as the Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT) or the Rorschach Inkblot Test. The TAT consists of drawings of people in
ambiguous situations that are used to encourage thematically oriented story telling from
the client. The Rorschach test with ink blots is used to stimulate the client’s free
association.
Today, most psychologists agree on the existence of unconscious mental processes that
profoundly affect human emotion, cognition, behavioral outcomes, and memorymaking.
We do not always know the reasons why we get angry or sad; why we think as we do;
or why we remember certain things and forget others. Some psychologists strive to find
verifiable and observable methodology to explicate the behavioral outcomes of the
human mind.
Edward Lee Thorndike proposed behaviorism in human psychology, which was based
on the idea of the law of effect. He theorized that people repeat behaviors that are
followed by positive outcome, while they abandon behaviors that produce a negative or
no outcome. Because of the law of effect, positive reinforcements can be used to
produce behavioral changes, Thorndike argued. Behaviorism is influential in developing
theories of learning, and sparked later research on mental schemes, fears, and
preferences. For example, Ivan Pavlov discovered a basic form of learning called
classical conditioning in which an organism comes to associate one stimulus with
another. In light of Darwinian evolution, psychologists began to use animals in
empirical research. For example, James Watson considered that the behavioral
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principles would generalize across all species, and advocated animal laboratory
research, based on direct observation and quantitative data collection, in order to
understand the cause and effect of psychology and behavior.
B. F. Skinner further developed human behaviorism, conceptualizing many behavioral
reinforcement techniques. Skinnerian theories are applied to a variety of behavioral
intervention programs at schools, workplaces, and medical facilities. Skinner invented
the first teaching machine, which allowed students to learn at their own pace by solving
a series of problems and receiving immediate feedback.
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While many psychologists study behavioral manifestations, and consequences of the
functions of the brain and nervous system, others are interested in the inner workings of
the brain from a biological and medical perspective. When it comes to the development
of human resources, psychologists pay particular attention to human socialization,
cognitive and emotional development, learning, and schooling. At the same time, they
examine genetic or physiological predispositions at birth to develop certain traits or
abilities. Therefore, the issue of nature versus nurture is a consequential subject of
continuing discussion and research among psychologists.
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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES – Social and Cultural Development of Human
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Gillette M. B. Between Mecca and Beijing: Modernization and Consumption among Urban Chinese
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Biographical Sketch
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Tomoko Hamada is Margaret Hamilton Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary,
which is the second oldest university in the United States. She completed her BA in American studies at
Vassar College, her MA in sociology at Keio University, and her Ph.D. in anthropology at the University
of California, Berkeley. She has taught at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa,
was Director of Asian Studies at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and since 1988 has been a
member of the faculty at William and Mary. Her publications include American Enterprise in Japan,
Cross-cultural management and Organizational Culture and Anthropological Perspectives on
Organizational Culture. She is the editor of Studies in Third World Societies, and is the author of
numerous articles and edited volumes, the primary focus of which is the culture of complex organizations.
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